PNP Mountain Bike Series 2010 - Round 3-Mt Vic
>> Tuesday 12 October 2010
After an amazing holiday of sunshine and sunburn, it was predictable that the day before the race the weather would turn to custard. Luckily on the actual race day it wasn’t too bad, the rain had stopped but the air still felt icy and the tracks were bound to be greasy and slippery. When we got to the race Caitlin Pilcher (usually my only U19 Girls competitor) informed me that today she would be racing in Rec Women, who ride the same course as us anyway, but usually have a much larger field. Not wanting to race being the only one in my grade and not knowing that Kara MacDermid had come to show us how it’s done, I too decided to race Rec Women.
The race started with one lap of the velodrome, and as usual there was a fair bit of argey-bargey getting out the gate, but more so in the other starts than in my start, which included both Rec grades, U19 Girls and U13. We had to do two laps of the 6.5km short course. Going up the first hill my throat started to burn almost immediately, reminding me that it’s definitely not good planning to get a cold just before the race. I got round the course very slowly but managed not to crash, however going up the big dipper the second time I managed to get very close to the top, only to find myself slide the whole way back down again.
I finally got home in a time of 1:18, ten minutes behind Caitlin, and 15 behind the lady who won rec women. This time was however good enough to get me third in my grade. Kara MacDermid, the U19 rider came home in an amazing time of only 46 minutes, making her the second fastest to complete that course, beaten only by 27 seconds by the winner of Rec Men, Jayant Singh.
Although not my best ever performance I still enjoyed the race. Marco and the team put on an amazing race and the course was so well marked not even I could have got lost. I’m looking forward to the next race, and the tough Belmont trails and I’m hoping Kara will once again come to teach us how to race, and that maybe some other mysterious girl will come along to give us someone to compete against.
